Mr. Conan McKenna:

There are two aspects. The first relates to the culture of the Department itself. What we set about doing back in 2014 following the Toland report was to strip the whole thing down with professional help and define where we thought we were in terms of our culture and where we thought we needed to be, which is exactly what the Toland report suggested we did. We came up with a number of particular areas that we wanted to be the characteristics of a change culture for the Department, including openness, trust and respectfulness, leading collaboratively, empowering people and making them accountable, being professional and supportive, being proactive in the things we do and ensuring a high standard of public service delivery. We set about putting a culture charter in relation to that, which was first of all adopted by the management board. It was specifically signed by every member of the management board and communicated to staff. What is interesting about that is that even in the last couple of weeks a number of staff have undergone leadership development programmes. As part of those programmes they had to come back and do particular projects in relation to their own areas of work and apply what they learned. They then present the results of the programmes to the management board in exhibitions. In the last couple of those presentations I have gone to, including in the last few weeks, it was very interesting for us as senior managers to see the new charter being fed back to us by the people who are doing the projects. They are embedding what they have learned in how they are going to deliver better accountability. At the grassroots that is a very encouraging sign.

In terms of the management board itself one of the key criticisms in the Toland report was that management was very much a series of silos within the operation and there was not cross criticism or openness to criticism or challenge at the board. A number of people were heads of areas and they reported on their own areas. That has transformed completely in the past three years in the sense that even the former Secretary General, Noel Waters, who only left last week was extremely encouraging and very specifically invited challenge on assertions or proposals from people like me, for example, who have nothing to do with the policing or prisons area. I think that is working very well.